el-shaped flowers, and viscid leaves. The leaves are
the officinal part, and their active properties depend on a peculiar,
oily-like alkaloid, called Nicotin. The flavor and strength of tobacco
depend on climate, cultivation, and the mode of manufacture. That most
esteemed by the smoker is Havanna tobacco, but the Virginian is the
strongest. The small Havanna cigars are prepared from the leaves of
_Nicotium repanda_, Syrian and Turkish tobacco from _N. rustica_, and
fine Shiraz tobacco from _N. persica_. With the exception of the
Macuba tobacco, which is cultivated in Martinique in a peculiar soil,
the tobacco of Cuba is considered the finest in the world. That grown
in the island of Trinidad is, however, fully equal to it in quality,
but all raised in the colony is generally consumed there, and is
little known in the English market. This ought not to be the case, for
no article would pay better.

The Maryland is a very light tobacco, in thin, yellow leaves; that of
Virginia is in large brown leaves, unctuous or somewhat gluey on the
surface, having a smell very like the figs of Malaga; that of Havanna
is in brownish light leaves, of an agreeable and rather spicy
smell,--it forms, as I have already stated, the best cigars. The
Carolina tobacco is less unctuous than the Virginian, but in the
United States it ranks next to the Maryland. The shag tobacco is dried
to the proper point upon sheets of copper, and is cut up by
knife-edged chopping stamps. There are said to be four kinds of
tobacco reared in Virginia, viz., the sweet-scented, which is
considered the best; the _big and little_, which follows next; then
the Frederick; and, lastly, the _one and all_, the largest kind, and
producing most in point of quantity.

According to Loudon ("Encyclo. of Plants"), there are fourteen species
of this genus, besides a few varieties. Lindley, however, enumerates
31, but many of these are mere showy species, adapted to flower
gardens. I shall therefore follow chiefly London's classification--

1. _N. Tabacum_, a native of several parts of America, but
principally known as Virginian tobacco, having a stem rising from
four to six feet or more in height, bearing pink flowers. Of this
there are three chief varieties known in America by the popular
names of Orinoco, Broad-leaved and Narrow-leaved. Lindley enumerates
eight varieties of _N. Tabacum_.

2. _N. macrophylla_, or large-leaved tobacco, an ornamen